


do you know who you are?

by elyrey



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Coming Out, Compulsory Heterosexuality, Crushes, Gay Awakening, Gen, Introspection, Kon and Bart are Good Friends, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Mentioned Jason Todd, Self-Discovery, Tim Drake-centric, Tim has a Crisis at 5 am, and by that i mean tiny-tim has a crush on robin-jason, pride month 2020, slight one-sided Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25010083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elyrey/pseuds/elyrey
Summary: He's twelve and watching Robin fight. He's seventeen and staring up at the ceiling. He's nineteen and text-spamming his best friends.Tim's growing up and finding himself, and he would really appreciate if the Realizations didn't happen when he's trying to sleep. Kon and Bart would probably appreciate that as well.
Relationships: Bart Allen & Tim Drake & Kon-El | Conner Kent
Comments: 26
Kudos: 76





	do you know who you are?

**Author's Note:**

> So! It's Pride Month (though it's nearly _not_ Pride Month anymore, life happened, oops) and I've been wanting to write this fic for a few months now. Originally, it was going to be a lot longer, but _originally_ I was going to do a much deeper projection of my own experience on Tim. When I actually tried to write it, it wasn't working out. This is the result.
> 
> What is that result exactly? A much shorter fic that really only explores three key moments of Tim finding himself! Once again: **this is a projection fic.** It's not an exact projection of my experience, but it's similar to it. It's a reflection of part of my own experience onto my favorite character. This isn't everyone's experience.
> 
> **Warnings** : slight mention of Jack and Janet Drake potentially being homophobic, and discussion of compulsory heterosexuality.
> 
> I want to say thank you _so much_ to the three awesome people who beta'd this for me: Bumpkin, ZulieTheProgrammer, and Oceans! You three are absolutely wonderful, thank you!! Oceans also gets another huge "thank you" for helping me figure out the title of this: Thank you so much!!
> 
> Speaking of the title: it's from the song in _Moana_ , "I am Moana"!

It starts as he’s watching the second Robin knock out some muggers. It’s not the first time Tim has seen Jason’s Robin take down a group of criminals, but it’s the first time that he nearly gives himself away as he squeaks.

_Jason’s so strong, and cool, and pretty, and – oh. Ah. Okay._

He calls it a night at that, bright red from the questions that are swimming around in his head. He spends most of the trip home lost in thought. When he’s sitting on his bed, one of his best pictures of Jason’s Robin sitting in front of him, he gives them a voice. Talking usually helps him get his thoughts in order. “Okay,” he whispers, “do I like boys?” He doesn’t _dislike_ them – not at all. But does he like them? Maybe, but… how is he supposed to know? “Is that too big of a topic?” he wonders aloud to the picture. “Let’s start with this: Do I like Robin? Jason-Robin.”

That doesn’t turn his brain into a jumbled mess like the previous question did. _Of course_ he likes Jason-Robin. He’s absolutely amazing, protecting people and checking on the working girls and kicking criminal ass! He’s only a couple years older than Tim is, but he does _so much more_! And he’s _real_ in a way Dick isn’t.

Jason’s just a kid like Tim, though they have such different backgrounds. Dick was a trained acrobat, with skills Tim never really believed he could learn. Jason seemed closer. He was still more amazing than Tim could ever hope to be, but it wasn’t an entirely impossible stretch like it was with Dick.

“And he’s so _passionate_ , especially when it’s a kid that’s in danger. And every time he smiles, it just makes me so happy that I kind of want to giggle and—” Tim stops babbling. He doesn’t need to anymore, after basically answering his own question. _Yes_ , he does like Jason Todd, the current Robin. As in, he has a _crush_ on him. Tim falls back on his bed to stare up at the ceiling.

“Well,” he says, “that explains the weird, squirmy feeling I get in my stomach every time I imagine talking to him.” That feeling is always accompanied by a fierce blush and Tim hiding his face for a good two minutes. He thinks he probably should have caught on sooner. Deciding that was enough Realizing Things for the night, Tim quickly locks the picture of Robin up with the rest and collapses on his bed to sleep.

The next day – a Saturday, which is Mrs. Mac’s day off – Tim hops on the computer and starts researching. He has a crush on one boy, but Tim still thinks girls can be cool. Batgirl is pretty awesome, after all! After a few hours and a lot of new information, he settles back on his bed again. He’s bisexual, and sexuality can apparently be really fluid. In all honesty, it didn’t take him hours to find the term, he just fell into a rabbit hole of researching sexual orientation and gender identities. Tim’s fairly secure in his gender, but he’s glad to have learned. It’s something to keep in mind about other people – to not assume anything based on appearances.

He’s bisexual, with a crush on a boy, and his parents will still expect him to only date girls. At least the boy was _Robin_ and completely unattainable.

* * *

Years later, Tim is laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling once again. It’s a different bed by now, in his own apartment at seventeen. The thing is, he’s pretty sure he has no interest in romance. And now his brain was mixing everything up in a tangle of thoughts and feelings again.

“Holding hands is nice,” he admits. “I like cuddling. That was fine.” He hasn’t gone further than making out with anyone, so that’s about the limit of his physical experience. It’s the implication of _emotions_ that makes him want to skitter away. Specifically, emotions of the romantic variety. Now Tim’s reassessing every romantic relationship he’s had, though he’s only ever dated women.

At the time, he had thought he was happy while in each relationship, but… it’s becoming much more likely that it’s because he was previously starved for affection. He suddenly got that affection while dating someone. That thought makes him want to hide from everyone he’s ever dated. Stephanie is the only one he really still has to see, and that has him burrowing under his blankets.

It sounds awful, honestly. Like he was using the relationship to get the affection he so desperately wanted. Logically, he might be overthinking this. He just wishes his dumb brain would tell that to his anxiety and the ingrained societal expectations. “I didn’t mean to,” he mumbled into the blankets.

Romance, dating, being happy in a relationship? He has no other experiences to reference! He didn’t know that something wasn’t right.

Hell, he’s only having this Realization because a woman was flirting with him at a gala and asked if he would like to get dinner together sometime. A romantic dinner date with a woman he wasn’t close to. The entire scenario would be _romance_ with no physical affection, and that didn’t sound pleasant in the slightest. It did, however, make him realize that he might need to think things through again.

So, here he is. Thinking things through. No romance – if he’s remembering his research correctly, the term is ‘aromantic’, similar to ‘asexual’. Asexuality was something he’d heard more about over the years, but he rarely heard of aromanticism. It had just stuck out because while the terms were similar, their meanings were pretty different.

Now he’s glad it stuck in his mind. It gives him less reason to panic about being confused. So, he was bisexual and aromantic. That’s fine! He’s a vigilante, romantic relationships would be difficult anyway.

* * *

A year and a half later, Tim’s fingers fly across the screen of his phone, sending text after text without waiting for a response. Either his friends would wake up or they wouldn’t. Hopefully they would.

**Tim:** Oh my god.  
Guys, wake up, I’m an idiot.  
Bart, Kon, please.  
I’m so dumb. How the hell am I this oblivious?  
I’m not bi-aro at all. I’m just fucking gay.  
It’s 5 am and I can’t sleep, and I just want a boyfriend.  
I want to do couple things, like cuddle up while watching movies.

**Clone Trooper:** dude, it’s the middle of the night.  
why do you do this to us?

Tim feels no sympathy for his friends – he’s been running on less than six hours of sleep for _years_. Sometimes less than four hours. High school and vigilantism don’t mix well. Anyway, they can deal with waking up to deal with his Realization.

**Sonic:** bro we cuddle up when we watch movies  
are we not good enough for you anymore

**Tim:** Yeah, but that’s platonic, Bart. And yes, I’m aware of the time. I’d like to be asleep too, but I’m lonely and sad and having Realizations! Suffer with me.

**Clone Trooper:** … suffer how? are you expecting us to have an existential crisis too, or is this just suffering by being awake?

**Tim:** Being awake. It’s not an existential crisis, it’s just a Realization.

**Sonic:** its the middle of the night i think it can be deemed an existential crisis

**Tim:** But seriously, someone please tell me how I jumped passed the logical conclusion I should have come to of “I’m just not attracted to women” and directly to “I have no interest in romance at all”?  
How did that make sense to me?

**Sonic:** society conditioned u to like women

Tim blinks at his screen. Bart isn’t wrong, but Tim has absolutely no idea where he’s going with that. He already had the Realization about societal conditioning, thanks.

**Tim:** Okay? I’m aware, but I’m not sure how that translates to how I didn’t think of the logical conclusion.

**Sonic:** dude. for years it was a fact – since you were a kid  
u were so conditioned that u should like women it was just a fact

**Clone Trooper:** think of it like this, tim: as far as you knew, you liked women. later, you figured out you like guys, but you still think you like women too.

**Tim:** We’ve established, yeah.

**Clone Trooper:** so, suddenly something is weird. the only really new thing is that there is romance involved. so that’s clearly gotta be the issue.

Oh. He stares so long the screen goes dark. He drops his phone on the bed and stares up at the ceiling, turning that over in his head. So. He jumped to not wanting romance because it was so deeply ingrained that he was supposed to like women? His exhausted brain seems to accept this explanation enough to calm the edge of self-recriminations.

**Tim:** That. Makes sense, I guess. But still, it really seems like I should’ve realized a while ago. Also, I’m kind of surprised that you aren’t teasing me for being oblivious.

**Sonic:** oh thats coming but teasing is saved for when u arent having a crisis

**Clone Trooper:** later, we’ll absolutely laugh about that jump in logic. but right now it’s too early and you’re already having A Time.

He’s not sure if he has wonderful friends or _terrible_ friends. Tim suspects that he’s still going to hear about this in a few years. It’s the kind of thing they won’t let die for a while.

**Tim:** Fair enough.

**Clone Trooper:** great, glad we got that cleared up! now tim...

**Tim:** What?

**Clone Trooper:** please. GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP.

Snickering, Tim plugs his phone in and smothers his face in the pillow. He’s still lonely and he still wants to analyze every missed evidence over the years, but he’s also exhausted. The chat with his friends did get his brain to shut up enough that he might actually be able to sleep. He can rethink his entire life again after he wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments and kudos are very welcome and much appreciated!!


End file.
